We're used to boxing movies from the US, but the UK has produced some knockout gems in its time. Stepping into the ring looking to add to that success is Prizefighter: The Life Of Jem Belcher, which has just added a host of actors, including Ray Winstone, Marton Csokas and Jodhi May.
This is the little known true story of a boxer became the youngest ever world champion at the age of nineteen in 1800. Jem Belcher transformed primitive pugilism into the sport of boxing as we know it today. Growing up in poverty and surrounded by brutal violence and addiction, Jem is saved by a benevolent mentor and the discipline of boxing, becoming the most exciting sportsman in all of England. Rivals, back-stabbing and the newly established boxing hierarchy did everything they could to thwart him but Jem is on path to cement his place in history - as a pioneer of the sport.
Matt Hookings, who wrote and will produce the film, will play Jem, while Winstone is Bill Warr, a keen pugilist who becomes both trainer and surrogate father to Jem. Also aboard? Steven Berkoff, Julian Glover and William Moseley.
The cameras should be cranking this May in Wales, with Daniel Graham in the director's chair.
“This is the movie every boxing fan has been waiting for as it tells for the first time the real origins of the modern-day sport that they love," says Hookings. "Jem’s life was tragic and unique but highly inspirational and should take its proper place in the history of sports."